The suspect in a quadruple murder last night in southern Ohio was shot and killed this morning
in a Northeast Side shooting that wounded three Columbus police officers.

The officers' names have not been released, but Columbus Police Sgt. Rich Weiner said at 2:30
p.m. that one officer has been released from the hospital, another probably will be released later
today and the condition of a third is serious but not life-threatening.

The shootout occurred at a home at 1939 Genessee Ave., near the corner of Joyce Avenue, about 11
a.m.

The suspect's body remained on the porch of the Genessee home, as well as multiple weapons,
early this afternoon. Another individual who was somehow involved in the shootout also has been
hospitalized.

Weiner said the dead suspect, Randle Lee Roberts II, 27, is the suspect in murders last night in
Adams County, where four people are dead.

Adams County Sheriff Kim Rogers said that at 10:30 a.m. today, a little girl ran from her house
at 9825 Rt. 41 near West Union, Ohio, to a neighbor's house and said she had found four members of
her family. She didn't know they were dead but she knew something was wrong.

That's when Adams County sheriff's officers went to the house and found four people dead, the
sheriff said. He said officers and state crime scene investigators are investigating.

The sheriff would not release their names. Relatives, however, said they are: Kendra Stephens
and her 11-year-old daughter, Harley Stephens, her sister-in-law, Sonya Stephens, and her
father-in-law, George Stephens.

It was Harley's sister, 8-year-old Mariah Stephens, who ran to a neighbor's this morning after
waking up and finding that something was wrong, relatives said.

Beau Stephens, who is Kendra's husband and the father of the girls, knew Roberts because Roberts
is married to a niece of Beau Stephens, 27-year-old Columbus resident Tiffany Walters, relatives
said.

Roberts and his wife had not been living together recently. Roberts had been living with the
Stephens family in Adams County.

Sheriff Rogers said the suspect had a wife who lived in Columbus and that's why Adams County
officers alerted Franklin County officers that the suspect might be traveling to central Ohio.

"We have a lot of work to do, but we know a bad guy is dead and we're confident that we have the
suspects," Weiner said outside the Genessee Avenue home.

Columbus, Mifflin Township and Clinton Township police were involved in the shootout but did not
know at the time that the suspect was being sought for the Adams County murders, Weiner said.

The suspect crashed through the fence of a church near the final shootout with a pickup truck
that had been stolen in Fayette County, said Madison County Sheriff James P. Sabin. A Chevy Blazer
that had gone missing in Adams County was recovered near where the pickup truck was taken in
Fayette County.

Several blocks of Genessee Avenue running east from Cleveland Avenue remained sealed off during
the early afternoon today as large numbers of police officers and sheriff's deputies investigated.
At least one house was being searched.

James Savannah, who lives in the neighborhood on Joyce Avenue, said the dramatic shootout
occurred as officers appeared to be chasing someone fleeing from the Cleveland Avenue area.

Sgt. Jim Gilbert, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, said the two sergeants and
one officer shot are all at least 20-year veterans.

They all took multiple shots to their legs. One also was hit in the shoulder and another in the
ear, he said. None of the injuries appear to be career-ending.

He said though the officers didn't know the man they were chasing was suspected of killing a
family of four, they knew he was desperate.

"When this whole story comes out and people hear what this was like and what they were all
facing, this will be nothing short of true heroics," he said. "This was a multiple murderer with
nothing to lose. This could have ended so, so much worse."